She
affected plum colour and had eyes like sloes--the fashionable hue in
the neat-foot-and-pretty-ankle period. The flames of the fire twinkled
brightly over this battalion of deuced fine women, who were all, without
one exception, the grandmothers--in various degrees--of the Prophet.
When speaking of them, in the highest terms, he never differentiated
them by the adjectives great, or great-great. They were all kind and
condescending enough to be his grandmothers. For a man of his sensitive,
delicate and grateful disposition this was enough. He thought them all
quite perfect, and took them all under the protection of his soft and
beaming eyes.
Of Mrs. Merillia, the live grandmother with whom he had the great
felicity to dwell in Berkeley Square, he seldom said anything in
public praise. The incense he offered at her shrine rose, most sweetly
perfumed, from his daily life. The hearth of this agreeable and
grandmotherly chamber was attractive with dogs, the silver cage beside
it with green love-birds. Upon the floor was a heavy, dull-blue carpet
over which--as has been intimated--even a butler so heavy as Mr.
Ferdinand could go softly. The walls were dressed with a dull blue paper
that looked like velvet.
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